what do i do?
Note: occasionally, Front Row Central will feature stories from unsheltered persons in Galveston. I have made no attempt to fact-check these stories, and I have changed any details that might identify the storyteller. The details of the story therefore may be accurate, or not, but either way I hope they help us to understand a little of how homelessness looks from the viewpoint of a person experiencing it.
D: “I was doing fine until I wasn’t.”
I met D four or five years ago when he was a manager at a local fast-food restaurant, so I was surprised to see him living on the street. Like many Galvestonians working in the hospitality industry, he was fired in the early days of the pandemic when business cratered. Some workers got rehired when business improved, others got different jobs. D was unable to do either, though he’s still trying to get a job, any job. He had no money saved, no relatives to help him out, no cushion at all. For a while, unemployment kept him afloat, but that ran out. He was on the street.
But to him, that wasn’t the worse part. What was worse, much worse, was how unemployment destroyed his self-image. He had always seen himself as a working man, someone who for the last forty years had supported his family. Now his family was gone; he couldn’t even support himself.
D attributes his inability to be hired to two factors; one was that he had physical damage that prevented him from heavy lifting. No problem back when he was a manager, but a very real problem for most of the jobs in the hospitality industry. The work is hard on the body, and he was pushing sixty.
And that, of course, was the biggest problem. No one wanted to hire people his age. Period. Business owners with Help Wanted signs all over the place wouldn’t even talk to him. A sixty-year-old lawyer, engineer, or college professor is going to have big trouble finding a comparable job if they lose the one they have, but a member of the working class who can’t do heavy labor anymore? Not a chance.
Unfortunately for D, although he is “too old” to get a job, he isn’t old enough to draw on the social security or Medicare that he has paid into all these years. He figures he will just have to suck it up until he turns 62 and can draw his social security, and somehow stay healthy until he turns 65 and is eligible for Medicare.
D is not one of our regulars, but I’m relating his story as an example of a story I’ve heard over and over at Central – I’m too old to get hired, but too young for social security/Medicare. What do I do?
D: “I was doing fine until I wasn’t.”
I met D four or five years ago when he was a manager at a local fast-food restaurant, so I was surprised to see him living on the street. Like many Galvestonians working in the hospitality industry, he was fired in the early days of the pandemic when business cratered. Some workers got rehired when business improved, others got different jobs. D was unable to do either, though he’s still trying to get a job, any job. He had no money saved, no relatives to help him out, no cushion at all. For a while, unemployment kept him afloat, but that ran out. He was on the street.
But to him, that wasn’t the worse part. What was worse, much worse, was how unemployment destroyed his self-image. He had always seen himself as a working man, someone who for the last forty years had supported his family. Now his family was gone; he couldn’t even support himself.
D attributes his inability to be hired to two factors; one was that he had physical damage that prevented him from heavy lifting. No problem back when he was a manager, but a very real problem for most of the jobs in the hospitality industry. The work is hard on the body, and he was pushing sixty.
And that, of course, was the biggest problem. No one wanted to hire people his age. Period. Business owners with Help Wanted signs all over the place wouldn’t even talk to him. A sixty-year-old lawyer, engineer, or college professor is going to have big trouble finding a comparable job if they lose the one they have, but a member of the working class who can’t do heavy labor anymore? Not a chance.
Unfortunately for D, although he is “too old” to get a job, he isn’t old enough to draw on the social security or Medicare that he has paid into all these years. He figures he will just have to suck it up until he turns 62 and can draw his social security, and somehow stay healthy until he turns 65 and is eligible for Medicare.
D is not one of our regulars, but I’m relating his story as an example of a story I’ve heard over and over at Central – I’m too old to get hired, but too young for social security/Medicare. What do I do?
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